The purpose of this thesis is to re-assert beauty as a fundamental and essential value within contemporary Christendom as it exists within a postmodern culture. Once a strong and meaningful concept within Christian belief, beauty has been lost over the passage of two millennia. This thesis examines the loss of beauty as a meaningful concept in western Christian belief, and offers a re-evaluation of the concept particularly within the postmodern world. Drawing together the fundamental concerns of postmodern society and the contribution that beauty is able to make from within the Christian context, this thesis demonstrates that "beauty" speaks to contemporary concerns and meets its deepest needs. Here, beauty, understood as the relational aspect of forms conceived by God, and offered to humanity as gift, is shown to overcome the affective sterility that has overtaken western society as an effect of enlightenment thought. An examination of the concept of beauty, particularly in the works of Thomas Aquinas, Jonathan Edwards and Gerard Manley Hopkins serves as a basis to posit a definition of beauty that is consistent with Christian beliefs without violating its unique content. Tracing the loss of beauty in western Christian thought and in western culture at large, and recognising the absence of a similar phenomenon within the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, suggests that the genius of these eastern traditions is their refusal to minimise the notion of "mystery" that stands at the heart of Christian revelation. The western Church then, is called to refocus on the centrality of the "mystery" inherent in her life. To this end, contemplation is proposed as the avenue wherein the believer experiences an intimate and transforming encounter with the Triune God which leads to the fruition of unique personhood that increasingly takes form as the "beauty of holiness." / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

Med tankar från pedagogen Montessori och filosoferna Platon och Baudrillard har detta arbete behandlat frågor om datorn och dess betydelse för en grafiker. Frågeställningen formulerades efter hand och lydde tillslut: ”Hur kan materia te sig i digital form?” Forskningen resulterade i en hypotes för hur digital materia skulle födas i datorn: genom att blanda två uppsättningar av data, såsom två genuppsättningar tillsammans skapar en ny organism. Under produktionen utvecklades därmed en metod för hur en grafiker ska kunna skapa tillsammans med en dator. Syftet är att ge andra grafiker ett nytt sätt att se på digital grafik. With thoughts from philosophers such as Montessori, Plato and Baudrillard this thesis has dealt with questions regarding the significance of computers for the graphic artist. The problem, or the question at issue, developed over time into: “What would be the digital equivalent to matter?” The research resulted in a theory of how matter could be born inside a computer: by combing two separate forms of data, just like a new organism is created with the combination of genetic codes. During the production phase a method for how a graphic artist could work with the computer rather than at the computer was established. The purpose of this method is to broaden the graphic artist’s view on digital graphics. / Detta är en reflektionsdel till en digital medieproduktion.

This thesis locates Abraham H. de Vries's Nag van ale Clown witbin the self-conscious South African socio-literary climate of the eighties and analyses postmodernist narrative strategies in five stories. Surveying the debate on postmodernism, this study describes postmodernism as a nomadic, inherently contradictory and mutually informing palimpsest of texts and views the De Vries text as a problematized inscribing of subjectivity into history. / Hierdie proefskrif situeer Nag van die Clown (1989) van Abraham H. de Vries binne die selfbewuste sosioliterere klimaat van die Suid-Afrika van die dekade tagtig en ontleed postmodernistiese vertelstrategiee in vyf verhale uit die bundel. Die studie bied 'n oorsig oor die debat rondom die postmodernisme as nomadiese, weersprekende en wedersyds voedende palimpses tekste en beskou die De Vries-teks as 'n problematiserende inskryf van subjektiwiteit in die geskiedenis.

Avsikten med denna studie har varit att studera det nya fenomenet börsinfluencers och deras samexistens med professionella licensierade rådgivare samt beskriva på vilket sätt betydelsen av den finansiella rådgivarrollen kan ha förändrats, något som inte har behandlats av tidigare forskning. Studiens genomförande utgår från det teoretiska ramverkets nyckelbegrepp Det klassiska ekonomiska finansparadigmet, beteendevetenskaplig finans, den rationella investeraren, den irrationella investeraren, egna fundamentala analyser, flockbeteende & tillgänglighetsheuristik, professionella rådgivare, börsinfluencers och postmodernism som tillsammans bildar analysmodellen. Modellen visar på hur de två rådgivningstrenderna samexisterar och den är indelad i två delar, en “rationell” sida och en “irrationell” sida för att slutligen visa att existensen av båda sidorna tillåts i det postmoderna samhället. Denna studie hade ett postmodernistiskt synsätt vilket medförde att resultatet endast ska betraktas som en av flera versioner av den yttre verkligheten. För att på bästa möjliga sätt kunna uppfylla syftet och besvara frågeställningarna användes dels en innehållsanalys av en dokumentstudie och dels en tematisk analys av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer där kriteriet vid urval av respondenter var att ha ett intresse för aktiemarknaden samt följa minst en börsinfluencer på Instagram. Studien använde dessa två olika metoder för att både kunna beskriva börsinfluencers agerande på sociala plattformar samt för att kunna analysera deras följares uppfattningar och upplevelser av fenomenet. Studien visade att börsinfluencers fyller olika behov hos respondenterna, där vissa ser på fenomenet som en typ av rådgivare vars åsikter och indirekta råd värderas högt vid investeringsbeslut medan andra vänder sig till börsinfluencers för inspiration i sin investeringsprocess. De tidigare tydliga gränsdragningarna och definitionerna av vad en finansiell rådgivare är har luckrats upp och istället lämnat plats för börsinfluencers, fenomenet kan betraktas som produkten av individers pragmatiska behov av lättillgänglig finansiell rådgivning. Där resultatet är börsinfluencers, den hyperrealistiska rådgivaren. / The purpose of this study has been to examine the new phenomenon of stock market influencers and their coexistence with professionally licensed advisers and to describe in what way the significance of the financial adviser role may have changed, something that has not been addressed by previous research. The implementation of the study is based on the theoretical framework's key concepts The classic economic finance paradigm, behavioral finance, the rational investor, the irrational investor, own fundamental analyzes, herd behavior & accessibility heuristics, professional advisors, stock market influencers and postmodernism that together form the analysis model. The model shows how the two advisory trends coexist and it is divided into two parts, one “rational” side and one “irrational” side, to finally show that the existence of both sides is allowed in the postmodern society. This study had a postmodernist approach, which meant that the result should only be considered as one of several versions of the external reality. In order to best fulfill the purpose and answer the questions, a content analysis of a document study and a thematic analysis of six semi-structured interviews were used, where the criterion when selecting respondents was to have an interest in the stock market and follow at least one stock market influencer on Instagram. The study used these two different methods to both be able to describe the actions of stock market influencers on social platforms and to be able to analyze their followers' perceptions and experiences of the phenomenon. The study showed that stock market influencers meet different needs of the respondents, where some see the phenomenon as a type of advisor whose opinions and indirect advice are highly valued in investment decisions while others use stock market influencers for inspiration in their investment process. The previously clear boundaries and definitions of what a financial adviser is have loosened up and instead left room for stock market influencers, the phenomenon can be considered as the product of individuals' pragmatic need for easily accessible financial advice. Where the result is stock market influencers, the hyperrealistic advisor.

In 1988, Linda Nicholson and Nancy Fraser published an article entitled "Social Criticism Without Philosophy: An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernism," arguing that this essay would provide a jumping point for discussion between feminisms and postmodernisms within academia. Within this essay, Nicholson and Fraser largely disavow a number of second wave feminist theories due to their essentialist and foundationalist underpinnings in favor of a set of postmodernist frameworks that might help feminist theorists overcome these epistemological impediments. A "postmodern feminism," Nicholson and Fraser claim, would become "the theoretical counterpart of a broader, richer, more complex, and multilayered solidarity, the sort of solidarity which is essential for overcoming the oppression of women" (35). Interpreting "Social Criticism" through a feminist cultural studies model in which texts are understood to be simultaneously constituted by and reflective of their own sociopolitical spaces, I argue that the construction of Nicholson and Fraser's "postmodern feminism" is, first and foremost, neither a postmodernist critique nor a means of overcoming the pitfalls of essentialism and foundationalism. Instead, the construction of this theoretical paradigm can be shown to be complicit with postfeminist discourses, wherein an implicitly patriarchal discourse of postmodernism is called upon to repair the deficiencies of feminisms, deficiencies that postmodernisms, in some ways, helped to bring into view. To provide a conceptual backing for these claims, I move toward an examination of mass culture, surveying the similarities between "Social Criticism" and the film What Women Want. Such a comparison, I suggest, facilitates a better understanding of how "Social Criticism" can be shown to be imbedded in a postfeminist narrative structure in which feminisms are relegated to a discursively subordinate gendered position in relation to postmodernisms. Finally, in what I find to be the most important aspect of this thesis' inquiry, I ask what it means to build a "broader, richer, more complex, and multilayered solidarity" by disavowing second wave feminisms in favor of postmodernisms. I conclude that, in using postmodernisms as a panacea for feminist theories, Nicholson and Fraser curtail what might have been a rigorous interrogation of and direct engagement with second wave feminist theories that would also attend to the phallogocentric underpinnings of postmodern theories. To underline the potential consequences, I turn to a set of televisual and filmic texts including Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, and The Devil Wears Prada to gauge what their "postmodern feminism" might represent in practice rather than what it entails as philosophy. This juxtaposition of these two differently defined and yet overwhelmingly similar postmodern feminisms, I propose, underscores the potential that Nicholson and Fraser may have instituted a postmodern feminist methodology in which it is possible that feminisms might emerge not as discourses essential for "overcoming the oppression of women" but rather as discourses that can be critiqued into oblivion.

With a postmodern archival perspective and Cooks four archival paradigms in mind, the purpose of this case study is to examine the Jewish Congregation in Stockholm’s needs and use of their own archives and what their thoughts are about preservation. The purpose is also to examine the content of the archive deposited by the congregation at the National Archives, and how the content can relate to the concepts of power, memory and identity. The source material consists of interviews and two writings relating to the archival investigation Härifrån till evigheten carried out in 2019. The source material also consists of the archival inventory list and its descriptions of the content in the deposited archive. The methods used in this study are a qualitative interview method and a qualitative content analysis.  The findings show that the congregation archives, both the deposited and the local archive, are used by the congregation to carry out tasks within the congregation´s various work areas. A problem and an area of needed development related to the use of the archives is the need for digitization of archival materials. A problem that is also addressed in the archival investigation. Concerning thoughts of preservation, the result shows that the congregation need more resources to ensure the preservation of the future memories that the archives represent. There is however a will and awareness among those who work within the congregation that the archives that the congregation is now creating through their work should be preserved in the right way.  The analysis of the content in the deposited archive shows that the historic memories that the scientists produce by using the archive in their scientific work, can be affected by the values of the congregation since they are controlling the access to the archive. Furthermore, the content of the archive contains memories created from the work of the congregation and the memories created by Jewish private individuals and organizations. Together they form the archive's collective memory which can be used as part of establishing group identity and ethnic identity.

My recent compositions are situated within a postmodern theoretical framework. The heterogeneity of materials and hybridity of musical formation in these works are interpreted and contextualized within a personal reading of postmodern theories. The critical essay traces my aesthetics through a historical investigation into the definition of musical postmodernism. Through extensive citation and analysis of the writings of Julius T. Fraser, Italo Calvino, and Richard Rorty, the essay aims to provide a theoretical context for the interpretation of the musical examples. The creative documentation contains three newly-composed musical works: Piano Trio from Opus 3/c, Opus 6 for Violin, and Opus 7 for Piccolo. The works' postmodern features include creative approaches to the fragmentation of musical time into separate levels, historical allusions, and the exploration of multiplicity.

This dissertation focuses on the interdependency between causality, context and history in selected novels by E.L. Doctorow: The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1974), Loon Lake (1980), World's Fair (1985) and The Waterworks (1995). Doctorow' s fiction is marked by an apparent paradox: while it underscores fictionalization and sometimes distorts late nineteenth and twentieth century American history, it simultaneously purports to be a valid representation of the past. The novelist's implementation of causality which is a significant component of "the power of freedom", constitutes fiction's ability to convey truth without relying on factuality or "the power of the regime". According to Doctorow, the documented fact is already an interpretation which induces the perception that all documentation is subjective. The author composes fictional contexts that disregard the pretence of reliability in non-fictional texts. Doctorow focuses on how contexts are formed: the contexts are usually defined through the experience of characters who have been exposed to an event or events that were generated by motivations, for example, emotions of fear, racism, conviction, desire and greed, i.e., the catalysts that form history. Each of the novels discussed focuses on various aspects of society and the fate of specific individuals. The Book of Daniel proposes that a human being can only survive physically and spiritually by remaining a social entity. Ragtime focuses on the persistent illusion in history that society is fragmented. The various "faces" of society encountered by the main character in Loon Lake, mirror one another and reflect spiritual poverty. Consequently, Loon Lake demonstrates that the search for personal fulfilment does not require a physical journey, but an inner or spiritual exploration. World's Fair postulates that reality is never exclusively defined by either fortune or misfortune alone. The Waterworks offers perhaps one of the most significant evaluations of history as it perceives that the world in which we live is essentially unknown to us. We have neither the practical means to obtain a total perspective of what occurs in society (especially among politicians and the financially powerful) nor do we have sufficient skills to distinguish what the motivations of individuals' actions really entail. / Thesis (M.A.) Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2000.

This dissertation investigates Allen Ginsberg's Beat poetry within the framework of twentieth-century literary developments, from modernism to postmodernism. It is argued that Beat writing is founded on a rejection of the detached, intellectual and formal nature of the high modernism which came to be institutionalised in the American literary practice of the 1950s. Beat poetry rejects this tradition in favour of an eclectic assemblage of ideas which may, either through direct influence or through parallel development, be linked to certain avant-garde modernist movements. All of these movements share assumptions which support and echo the personal and spiritual vision of Beat aesthetics, as well as its formal experimentation. This eclectic assemblage also involves the assimilation of the ideas of modernist movements often held to be in conflict, embodying opposing strains of modernism. This dynamic is illustrated by analysing the influence of two such opposing modernist influences on Ginsberg's Beat poetry, namely imagism and surrealism. Finally, it is argued that this double gesture of a rejection of the institutionalised form of high modernism and a simultaneous re-assessment of the avant-garde constitutes a crucial step in the development towards postmodernism. Together with the surfacing of postmodernist characteristics in Ginsberg's Beat poetry, this forms the basis for the conclusion that Ginsberg's Beat poetry may be regarded as playing a transitional and initiating role in the literary evolution from modernism to postmodernism. / Thesis (MA)--PU for CHE, 1999.

This dissertation focuses on the interdependency between causality, context and history in selected novels by E.L. Doctorow: The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1974), Loon Lake (1980), World's Fair (1985) and The Waterworks (1995). Doctorow' s fiction is marked by an apparent paradox: while it underscores fictionalization and sometimes distorts late nineteenth and twentieth century American history, it simultaneously purports to be a valid representation of the past. The novelist's implementation of causality which is a significant component of "the power of freedom", constitutes fiction's ability to convey truth without relying on factuality or "the power of the regime". According to Doctorow, the documented fact is already an interpretation which induces the perception that all documentation is subjective. The author composes fictional contexts that disregard the pretence of reliability in non-fictional texts. Doctorow focuses on how contexts are formed: the contexts are usually defined through the experience of characters who have been exposed to an event or events that were generated by motivations, for example, emotions of fear, racism, conviction, desire and greed, i.e., the catalysts that form history. Each of the novels discussed focuses on various aspects of society and the fate of specific individuals. The Book of Daniel proposes that a human being can only survive physically and spiritually by remaining a social entity. Ragtime focuses on the persistent illusion in history that society is fragmented. The various "faces" of society encountered by the main character in Loon Lake, mirror one another and reflect spiritual poverty. Consequently, Loon Lake demonstrates that the search for personal fulfilment does not require a physical journey, but an inner or spiritual exploration. World's Fair postulates that reality is never exclusively defined by either fortune or misfortune alone. The Waterworks offers perhaps one of the most significant evaluations of history as it perceives that the world in which we live is essentially unknown to us. We have neither the practical means to obtain a total perspective of what occurs in society (especially among politicians and the financially powerful) nor do we have sufficient skills to distinguish what the motivations of individuals' actions really entail. / Thesis (M.A.) Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2000.